A toast to two peninsulas

Otis was making a nuisance of himself. Until he padded up, I'd had the patio, the vineyards and the flight of wines to myself. It's not so much that I minded sharing: What are a few morsels of cheese and crackers when you're making friends? But all the same, I did think it was just a bit presumptuous of him, seeing as how he had barked at me earlier when I drove up.

I guess that's what comes of letting your owners name a chardonnay/riesling after you. Proof positive that even dogs can let fame go to their heads. And there's no denying that Otis (the wine, not the dog) is the best-selling label at Bowers Harbor Vineyards.Anyway, it wasn't long before Otis and I were joined by a barefoot-and-balding Jack Stegenga, who pulled up a chair and began telling how he had wound up moving to Old Mission Peninsula, planting this very vineyard in place of his "gentleman horse farm" and eventually opening the winery. His story, pruned of the details, was that of most everyone who has put down roots on Old Mission Peninsula and Leelanau Peninsula for more than 150 years: Answering the primal call of woods, waters and fertile soils; neighbors helping neighbors make a go of things; receiving vacationers as if they were long-lost friends.

In these parts, I couldn't pull off the road to take a photo without someone stopping to ask if I were having car trouble. I couldn't prowl for souvenirs without the clerks spilling the local gossip. I couldn't eavesdrop on the next table without being called upon to join the conversation. The homey restaurants, sandy beaches, old lighthouses, quirky villages, historic churches, weathered barns, country drives, craft shops, fruit stands, fishing spots and hiking trails were equally welcoming.

In this North Woods-tamed kind of place, people have time to dress-up their mailboxes; and you, dear stranger, have time to notice--a rural idyll where the nearest McDonald's or Starbucks or 7-11 is somewhere back in Traverse City.

Leelanau Peninsula, the longer, wider and perhaps better-known of the two, reaches 30 miles into Lake Michigan north of Traverse City. It's large enough to hold lakes and streams, several small communities, a few golf courses, a casino and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

Old Mission Peninsula, partially within Traverse City limits, divides Grand Traverse Bay into East and West arms. Just 18 miles long, it's so narrow in spots that you can see both arms of the bay--and slopes planted in vineyards--from a single vantage point.

The vineyards, those on both peninsulas, may surprise vacationers who have been conditioned to expect nothing but cherries in this region. After all, Traverse City claims the title of "Cherry Capital of the World." But this part of Michigan also is mightyproud that it lies on the 45th Parallel--halfway between the Equator and the North Pole--just like the renowned wine-growing regions in France and Italy. Its blend of climate and soils have made it a bona fide American Viticultural Area.

Still, as much as they share in common, each of these two peninsulas has its own pleasures worthy of individual consideration--Otis being a prime example. And I wouldn't want to slight a one of them.

Leelanau Peninsula

The two young women--both in that all-grown-up age bracket that hovers three years either side of 20--were working the ice cream counter at Leland Harbor House, waiting for me to make up my mind. One said to the other: "I wish we would start serving coffee. We could sell it for a lot less than the place across the street."

"I know," agreed the second, "but that might put them out of business, and we couldn't do that."

That sense of community in this land reaches at least as far back as the Anishnabek Indians, who once climbed the hills to harvest maple sap and left their signatures behind in the form of arrowheads, hammers and pottery shards. In the early days, the forests were so thick that when the Empire Lumber Company built its mill in the late 1800s, it was taking as much as 20 million feet of lumber a year. By 1917, when the mill burned down, most of the virgin timber was gone.

However, the village of Empire, at the far southwestern coast of Leelanau County, is still around, now with a vast, sandy beach park that has a good playground, clean restrooms and views of Sleeping Bear Dunes to the north.

The dunes themselves, powder soft and gold-colored, drop a sheer 450 feet from summit to the shore of Lake Michigan. The best way to see them is by taking Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, which winds through scrub and forest and provides parking spaces for those who want to stop at the numerous overlooks or take to the hiking trails.

On the way to Glen Arbor, one of the smaller dunes, the Dune Climb, is just a baby at 150 feet high--a good place to let the kids run off steam. The only problem: You'll have to bribe or threaten in order to get them back in the car.

When you get to Glen Arbor, you must pay your respects, and in all likelihood a respectable amount of cash as well, to Cherry Republic, a block off Michigan Highway 22 on Lake Street. The wood-frame store, with its English-style garden and adjacent snack bar, is the self-appointed headquarters for cherry everything, from cherry salsa to cherry pie.

I left with a bottle of cherry hot sauce and a dozen hamburger-sized Chocolate-Pecan Boomchunka cookies, figuring that the county whose farmers replanted the denuded forests with more than 12,000 acres of cherry orchards did, after all, need some place besides the Traverse City Cherry Festival to sell the fruits of their labors.

On up the coast in Leland, the town where I had listened in on the sage conversation at the ice cream counter, there is easily a lazy day's worth of boutique shops in need of your undivided attention. A few of them are in the wooden shanties of Fishtown, a block-long landmark of docks where the commercial fleet used to unload its catches. The planks still look as if Popeye might turn the corner at any moment. And a few faithful fishermen still dry their nets here.

But for all its ramshackle appearance, Fishtown has gone uptown: Its boats attract the charter crowd; its ferries carry Gore-Tex backpackers to the Manitou Islands; and Good Harbor Vineyards has burdened its $6 bottle of Fishtown White with this weighty description: "a fruit forward wine with nuances of malolactic fermentation and French oak."

At the northernmost point of the Leelanau Peninsula, the 1858 Grand Traverse Lighthouse watches over nothing more these days than a rocky beach and the state park in which it sits. For a $2 donation, $6 if you include the $4 parking fee, I trod its varnished floors, scanned the photos of past keepers and their families in the upstairs bedrooms, and climbed first a corkscrew stairway and then a ladder to stand where its old light used to shine.

A roadside curiosity on the drive there and back is the whimsical Woolsey Airport, a relic of a terminal no bigger than a gas station. Like some homes in this area, it was constructed of round boulders, but its tin roof is freshly painted in bull's-eye circles of yellow and black; its grass landing strip is marked off with bright orange cones.

South of there, down the peninsula's east coast, is Northport, where streets like Waukazoo and Nagonaba are named after Ottawa and Chippewa chiefs. The village is small enough so that a 3-year-old boy can beg, "I want to see a tractor," and momentarily see the object of his desire drive right through town. But it's large enough to have a bank with a drive-up ATM, for adults running low on cash.

The marina is home to a picnic pavilion, a small beach and the 24-passenger Manitou, a two-masted schooner that makes multi-day sailing cruises that book up months ahead. Not to be outdone by the docks in Leland or the dog on Old Mission, it, too, has its own wine label. Tall Ship Chardonnay is produced by Leelanau Cellars, just down the road at Omena.

South of there is the Leelanau Sands Casino, and then Suttons Bay: two blocks--four, if you are in a generous mood--of specialty stores, antique shops and art galleries scattered among eateries and 19th Century storefronts that house real estate and doctor's offices.

The port that once shipped lumber in the logging days is now a marina, flanked by two long, pier-like parks with boardwalks and picnic tables. If only I had brought my binoculars, I'd have had a better look at the swans and redwing blackbirds around the marsh. But I didn't need any help spotting hundreds of black tadpoles wriggling in the water.

Between here and Traverse City, lie more wineries such as Ciccone Vineyard and Winery, owned by Madonna's dad (yes, that Madonna), and the winery at Black Star Farms, whose owners did not give up the "gentleman horse farm" in order to plant grapes.

At Black Star Farms, they hold dressage in the stables, make cheese in the creamery and produce, among other things, the A Capella Ice Wine that in March was served with coconut custard cake at the White House. So far as I can tell, it hasn't gotten 'round to labeling any of its wines after landmarks or pets, but it does distill a pear-in-the-bottle brandy, and the lodgings in its seven-room inn are named after stars.

Old Mission Peninsula

A bright sun and a light breeze off the bay made the deck at the Boathouse Restaurant quite attractive for lunch--nice view of the Bowers Harbor marina and Neahtawanta Point beyond. The shirtsleeves executive at the next table was dining alone, except for the cell phone at his ear. Between bites, his part of the conversation went like this: "It's too nice an afternoon to work. Why don't we take the boat out?" And that was on a Tuesday.

There's a clubby feel to the lower half of Old Mission Peninsula, where a moneyed part of Traverse City spreads north in expensive homes along Peninsula Drive, a route popular with joggers and cyclists. By the time you reach Bowers Harbor, the homes become rural estates, sometimes separated by less enviable property, sometimes bordered by lush vineyards like the one where Otis lives. After Bowers Harbor, Peninsula Drive becomes a pleasant country road that serves the farms to the north.

Michigan Highway 37, on the other hand, runs the length of the peninsula, picking up wineries and hilltop bay-views on its way to the lighthouse. Peninsula Cellars, whose tasting room is in the historic Maple Grove School still has its blackboards and a photo of the kindergarten-through-seventh Class of 1953. Chateau Grand Traverse gives 15-minute tours of the wine-making process and makes a pinot gris and a cherry wine recommended by the Chicago-based Beverage Testing Institute. Farther north, Chateau Chantal holds live jazz sessions around the grand piano in its tasting room on Thursday evenings in summer.

On the northern shore and the 45th Parallel, the 1870 Old Mission Lighthouse is photogenic, but its interior and immediate grounds are off limits to visitors. Instead, people wander the long, sandy beach here or walk the wooded hiking trails. I didn't see any ships passing by--a far cry from the old days, when a keeper in 1875 counted 101 steamers and 75 sailing ships in a single entry.

Doubtless some of those were headed to the township of Old Mission, a former Ottawa village that became a farm community and then a vacation spot so popular that in 1891 steamship lines arrived three times a week from Traverse City.

Aside from the community's historic buildings, all that's left of the heyday is a historical marker at Haserot Beach that tells how a Rev. Leffingwell had to time his Sunday morning sermons so that they would not be interrupted by the 7 a.m. arrival of the Friday-night boat from Chicago.

Today, the beach is left to locals who seem to appreciate its relative anonymity. I eavesdropped one last time on a swimsuit-clad family picnicking under a brightly striped parasol, congratulating themselves on their move: "Remember when we lived in Aurora? All we ever got to do was go to a water park."

IF YOU GO

GETTING THERE

Traverse City is about 320 miles from Chicago via Interstate Highways 94 and 196, U.S. Highway 131 and Michigan Highways 115 and 37. Traverse City's Cherry Capital Airport has non-stop service from Chicago on American Eagle and United Express.

On the Leelanau Peninsula, the communities of Suttons Bay, Leland and Northport are scattered 17 to 29 miles from Traverse City, via Michigan Highway 22. Old Mission Peninsula, where many businesses give a Traverse City address, is reached via Michigan Highway 37 or Peninsula Drive.

SAMPLE THE TASTING ROOMS

These wineries have tasting rooms open daily during summer. Hours are subject to change. Call ahead to avoid disappointment.

LEELANAU

Bel Lago: Open daily, noon-6 p.m., May-October; reduced hours at other times. Located along South Lake Shore Drive (County Highway 643) near the village of Cedar. (231-228-4800; or at www.bellago.com)

Ciccone Vineyard & Winery: Open daily noon-6 p.m. during the summer; reduced hours at other times. Located on Hilltop Road, off Michigan 22, near Suttons Bay. (231-271-5553; or at www.cicconevineyards.com)

Good Harbor Vineyards: Open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday during summer; reduced hours at other times. Located along Michigan 22, near Lake Leelanau. (231-256-7165; or at www.goodharbor.com)

Shady Lane Cellars: Open daily noon-5 p.m. May-October; reduced hours at other times. Located on Shady Lane, off Michigan 22, near Suttons Bay. (231-947-8865; or at )

Chateau Chantal: Open 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday mid-June-August; reduced hours the rest of the year. Live jazz on Thursday nights. Winery tours. Located near Old Mission township off Michigan 37. (231-223-4110; or at www.chateauchantal.com)

Falling Waters Lodge: Refurbished Leland motel overlooks Fishtown, at the spillway where North Lake Leelanau flows into Lake Michigan. Standard rooms to "penthouse" suite available depending on the season. (231-256-9832; or via www.bedandbreakfast.com)

The Inn at Black Star Farms: Right in the middle of the Black Star Farms vineyards, south of Suttons Bay. Rates (231-944-1251; or at www.blackstarfarms.com)

Whaleback Inn: Cottages and inn rooms with country decor, on the outskirts of Leland. Some rooms have whirlpool tubs and lake views. (231-256-9090; or at www.whalebackinn.com)

LODGING: OLD MISSION

Chateau Chantal B&B: Two suites and one queen room in Chateau Chantal's hilltop winery, overlooking vineyards, orchards, woods, and East and West Grand Traverse Bay. (800-969-4009; or at www.chateauchantal.com)

The Inn at Chateau Grand Traverse: Six-room inn perched on a hilltop overlooking vineyards, orchards and West Grand Traverse Bay. (800-283-0247 or at www.cgtwines.com)

DINING: LEELANAU

The Bluebird: Leland. Casual lunch and dinner in the bar; upscale dinner in the dining room that overlooks North Lake Leelanau. Reservations suggested for the dining room. (231-256-9081)

The Cove: Leland. Perched at the spillway in Fishtown. Two upscale dining rooms and a large deck overlook Fishtown. Lunch and dinner. Reservations suggested for dinner, but that only gives you priority over walk-ins, not seating upon arrival. (231-256-9834)